lambaste the martyr
by Antipatheia
Summary: Sora Takenouchi settled for silver in so many ways. Hating Tai and loving Matt has never been so right.


**lambaste the martyr**

. ... .

. ... .

**desolation/desolation**

The space between them is almost nonexistent. Sora can feel her bony hip against his stomach, and there was a chance moment earlier when one of Sora's knees dead-legged him in the thigh, dangerously close to something else.

The space between them is almost nonexistent. They lie together in a puppy-heap on Yamato's unmade teenage bed- all thirteen years old and confused with what _this is_ and hating themselves for crushing Tai's _hopesdreamswants _(i'm sorry but i just don't feel that way about you)- and now none of them can no longer be best of friends, because Sora likes Matt and Matt likes Sora and Tai _wants_ Sora – and they both let out a breathy moan in the same cadence and rhythm. Yamato twists Sora's shirt tightly in his left hand and Sora bite's his left shoulder instead of letting loose a scream of -

"I know," Matt says (or maybe he says it himself) soothingly into her spine. A small hand, soft and slender traces his ear restlessly, and he twitches before poking Sora in the side.

"Yeah," Sora mumbles, burrowing her face farther into the apex of Yamato's shoulder and neck. "I know."

. ... .

**the end of days**

Sora knows that he is everything she has ever wanted and Yamato is Matt and he has always wanted her - and Tai is both their friends but he can _gofuckhimself._

He started all this bullshit when he tried to steal Sora away.

And failed.

So she doesn't know what to say when Yamato -

It goes like this.

They are sitting alone on the side of the soccer field for the two hundred and fifty-ninth time waiting for Tai to finish practise and it is raining and neither of them know why they are there. Sora insists they stay. They've been friends since they were six years old and they can't throw everything away over one hormonally charged one-sided kiss. But suddenly, Matt won't speak. Sora doesn't even know what the hell has just happened.

"Matt- "

"_Don't_—don't talk."

Sora glances at Yamato for the first time since sitting in the downpour for 45 minutes and sees simmering anger.

"Hey," she replies indignantly. She thinks back to yesterday and the day before and to the past two weeks and how they have sat in silence watching Tai practise "Don't take this out on me, Matt," she finally says. "Tai was the one who started this is all. I didn't ask for him to kiss me. I—,"

Yamato is glaring now, blue eyes hot and slitted and furious, and Sora feels herself beginning to match.

"But you _are_ the one who insists we come here and pretend everything between us three is fine when clearly it's not. Have you ever thought," Yamato hisses in a snarl that Sora has never heard, "that I don't want to waste my time on you for the rest of my life? Tai is right. You two belong together."

They are fifteen and young and flippant and stupid, and this is the first fight they have ever had. These are unforgivable words, words that punch Sora in the gut like Tai's angry fists and make her stare with sickened eyes, trying not to throw up.

She doesn't know what to say.

. ... .

**the glory of the gods**

There is a story. There are many stories, and this story – _their parents__ tells them at bedtime, carefully tucking the blankets around their curled, sleepy forms -_ is about a pair of star-crossed lovers.

The lovers are heroes of the digital world. They are gallant and dashing and brave and strong, and they can do anything in the world. They battle digimon and rescue their friends and perform other magnificent and epic feats. But their greatest power - _says the tired, too young mothers_ - is to make others smile and be happy and laugh and love.

Now: is now. Now the children are grown up and mothers are old and bedtime stories are - never mind. Bed time stories don't really fade. Sora and Yamato still try their best to make everyone love and be happy with friendship, unconsciously striving to live up to a hastily invented stories of their childhood that aren't really stories, but as they grow older, they fail to live up to their expectations.

Friendships fall apart. They don't see Tai anymore.

Love fades. Sora can't remember the last time Matt said that he loves her.

Sometimes, when Sora hasn't been able to truly catch her boyfriend's eye for three days straight and her face feels like it is about to crack, she wonders what life would be like if it felt meaningful or like anything less than a huge lie at all.

(Things haven't been the same between them since that day at the soccer field, but all Yamato gives her is meaningless conversations and silence and jagged edges that won't fit together. Sora shoves them in place anyway and pretends that everything is fine.)

**is put out**

Nineteenth birthday, and Yamato is passed out on the floor. Sora laughs when Mimi gives the heavily snoring birthday boy whiskers drawn onto his cheeks with a permanent marker with a flamboyantly drunk movement of her slender hands.

And then she boots Mimi out of his flat with a friendly goodbye, and quick thanks for the help getting Yamato home. She lets her smile drop as Mimi's stumbling footsteps meander away and she realizes that he has to get her boyfriend to bed.

She is fairly blitzed herself.

She nearly loses her balance when she bends down to get a grip on Yamato. She straightens up quickly - too quickly, nearly losing her balance again - and scowls lightly down at her boyfriend's unconscious body.

"You're an idiot."

Sora doesn't know if she is talking to her boyfriend or herself.

It's Yamato nineteenth birthday, and Sora has too many bad habits. (Her boyfriend. Silence. Misunderstandings and hurt and decay and distance and not-fitting and suffocation and smallness and the most useless, cowardly tongue in the world.)

She doesn't even know if he loves her anymore.

She can't bring herself to ask.

. ... .

**like a reed torch**

Sora finds it alternately hilarious and chest-gouging that Yamato's last words to her were spent teasing the color of her hairclips.

In the numb wake of this - in the wake of the breakup and the first tentative conversation with her old friend Tai and the chaos - she finds herself sitting alone in an alcove of her empty apartment with a bottle of whiskey. It has been hours - or maybe days - since she last talked to Matt. Hours - maybe days - since Tai said he still loves her.

They never did talk about that afternoon when Tai kissed her and ruined everything between her and Matt. Sora wonders now what she is supposed to do. Is she supposed to be -

She doesn't even know. She refuses to - she can't make everything okay now. She can't make them alright again. She can't - because now Matt is gone, and talking to an empty shell to make peace is a cop-out cheaper than an Odiaba district whore. She refuses to lie to herself like that. (Anymore.)

_-the lovers are heroes of the digital world. They are gallant and dashing and brave and strong, and they can do anything in the world-_

Sora is tired of lies.

She slips away during the latest reunion doesn't see any of her remaining friends again for many months.

. ... .

**in the water**

Sora really hates Tai.

They meet up out of nowhere at the next reunion. Everyone is drinking and everyone is hurting and no one will meet each others eyes to talk about the elephant in the room. Matt is sitting next to Mimi and as his laughter rings out desperately and tinnily in the streets and bars, this is when she first hates him.

"One day," Tai says, punching through the whiskey-bitter haze, "you'll see what an asshole he was, Sora."

She's sure this is meant to make her feel better in some sort of way; a condolance prize for loosing her first true love, but instead, Sora snarls something she doesn't even understand and throws back her tenth shot of vodka.

A few shots later, they fuck, and a few years later, they marry.

She bears him a son.

After the birth, he looks her in the eye defiantly and blazingly and brazenly and _stupidly _and says, "We're naming him after me."

She looks away without saying a word.

She doesn't stop hating him, quietly and truly and unimportantly and factually (like: the sun will rise and we were once all heroes and I miss Yamato - I hate my husband), and as the years pass she doesn't know if it is because he suggested she was capable of moving on (matt is an asshole. you deserve better) or because he was wrong about it.

She doesn't really care.

. ... .

**even the gods must die**


End file.
